Private equity investment into education companies in China fell sharply in 2012 compared with a year earlier, despite expectations that the country’s burgeoning middle class will continue to spend more money on schooling. The poor performance of education companies in the public market has put off many investors from injecting capital into the sector’s private companies, despite what they say are attractive valuations.

The National Venture Capital Association has created a growth-equity group within its organization led by Bruce Evans of Summit Partners as it looks to boost its membership and better represent a part of the venture business that it thinks gets overlooked. In doing so, it is addressing a trend toward the greater use of growth-equity financing by venture-backed companies facing a long road to an M&A or IPO exit. It is also launching a possible push to expand the definition of venture capital set forth under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Also in today’s VentureWire, Epirus Biopharmaceuticals aims to capitalize on expected demand for lower-cost biosimilar versions of high-priced biological drugs whose patents are due to expire. It’s seeking about $25 million in Series B funding for clinical trials of a biosimilar version of the Johnson & Johnson drug Remicade, and to build its pipeline…Real time question-and-answer site ChaCha Search is saying cha-ching, having raised a fresh $14 million from existing investors. The Series G round comes as the company prepares to launch a new product in March and radically shift the way it’s been doing business…and Lightspeed China Partners has closed a $168 million fund to invest in China-based early-stage companies, surpassing the firm’s $150 million target. The fund, Lightspeed China Partners I LP, will invest $8 million to $10 million per company in sectors such as Internet, mobile, services and enterprise.

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Elsewhere around the Web:

The Wall Street Journal’sAccelerators blog is leaving the coastal elites behind this week and going to the heartland. A new weeklong feature, Heartland USA, will examine the following question: Can a startup be successful anywhere in the United States? Each day will be dedicated to a different city/state and will feature essays and videos from among more than 20 guest contributors about founding or funding companies outside of an established hub like New York City or San Francisco. Today’s region – Colorado. The rest of the week will feature Tennessee, Washington D.C./Maryland, Nebraska and Oregon.

BlackRock, a giant investment-management company, has offered to buy about $80 million of Twitter stock at a price that would value the company at more than $9 billion. Twitter wouldn’t raise any money from the deal, rather the sellers would be early employees and perhaps others. Early venture backers of the messaging company include Charles River Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures.

Early-stage venture investor First Round Capital issued its annual report for 2012, noting that it was the first year since the firm was founded that less than half of the money it invested went to consumer companies. It’s further evidence that venture investors are shifting away from consumer-facing companies as startups that sell products to businesses look more attractive.

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Produced by the editors of Dow Jones VentureWire, Venture Capital Dispatch tracks the fast-moving developments at the intersection of high-tech innovation and venture capital finance. Featuring the VentureWire reporting team in the Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and Shanghai tech centers, Venture Capital Dispatch provides insight into the newest start-ups and latest trends in venture capital investing. Write us at VCdispatch@dowjones.com. For more information on Dow Jones products covering venture capital and other financial markets, go to http://pevc.dowjones.com.